Just three years ago, things were looking bleak for river communities. But after a string of unprecedented victories this year, we have an opportunity to protect the world’s critical freshwater ecosystems for future generations.

Brazil’s Federal Environmental Agency (IBAMA) announced today that it has cancelled the licensing process for the controversial São Luiz do Tapajós mega-dam, the largest planned hydro project in the Amazon. International Rivers and AmazonWatch welcomed the decision as a great success and an important precedent case.

On July 25, the World Bank suspended its support for the giant Inga 3 Dam in the Democratic Republic of Congo. What the World Bank once hailed as a “transformational project” for the region has become the latest cautionary tale of the enormous pitfalls of mega-dams. Rudo Sanyanga, Africa Director of International Rivers, says: “We applaud the World Bank’s decision to suspend Inga 3, a project in which it shouldn’t have become involved in the first place. Inga 3 represents a failed development model which bypasses the poor for the benefit of extractive industry and export markets.”

A member of the Munduruku indigenous group stands beside the Tapajós River, Pará state, Brazil. The Munduruku’s Sawré Muybu territory on the Tapajós is threatened by a proposed dam complex including the São Luiz do Tapajós dam. Those territorial claims were recently recognised by the Brazilian government, putting the licensing of the dam in serious doubt. Valdemir Cunha / Greenpeace This article was originally published at Mongabay. The São Luiz do Tapajós mega-dam, whose construction would lead to “social and environmental disaster” according to a Greenpeace report published la

Plans to build a huge hydroelectric dam in the Amazon have been put on hold after Brazil’s environmental agency, Ibama, suspended the licensing process over concerns about its impact on the indigenous community in the region.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Brasilia, Brazil: In a surprising move, IBAMA, the administrative arm of the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment, suspended the environmental licensing process of the controversial São Luiz do Tapajós Dam in the Brazilian Amazon yesterday. International Rivers welcomes this decision as an important breakthrough for the protection of rivers and indigenous rights in the Amazon. The move comes just one day after the federal agency for indigenous affairs in Brazil, FUNAI, published a technical report confirming that a 178,000-hectare territory along the Tapajós River, k